Karl Marx on the Election

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy,

the second time as farce.”

This one is done tongue in cheek.

While there are substantial similarities between Carter and Obama: rapid rises to running for President from relative obscurity, a strong emphasis on a change theme, running as agents of national renewal, spouses with chips on their shoulders, etc, there are also substantial differences: Obama comes from the left wing of the Democrat party and Carter ran as a centrist Democrat, Obama is a Northern urbanite while Carter was Southern and rural, Obama has strong support from the party apparatus while Carter was always something of an outsider, etc. However, if there is an Obama administration I wouldn’t be at all surprised if many of its policies had a Carteresque feel to them, especially in foreign policy and energy based upon Obama’s policy positions, although hopefully Obama would not don a sweater and speak about a spiritual malaise of the nation if his policies came a cropper as Carter’s did.